Dorset Murders (14 page)

McGuire had been working as a picture dealer in Pimlico, buying pictures from artists at a set price and selling them on to galleries, keeping any profit. His main client was an artist called Henry Hayman from Rochester. Hayman knew him as Frank Powell and ‘Powell' was actually engaged to be married to his daughter. That McGuire was having financial difficulties was evidenced by the pawn tickets relating to pictures and paintings that were found when police searched his London rooms.

As well as insights into Frank's life, the inquest brought forth new information about Emma. She was known to be an extremely tidy woman, yet after her death her friend Susan Royce found the missing jewellery and money wrapped in a handkerchief in a box under her bed, rather than in her jewellery box where they were usually kept. Likewise, her purse and handbag were found in her room, also not in their proper place. Had someone hurriedly replaced them after her murder?

Frederick Blachford, a bootmaker's boy from Boscombe, gave evidence at the inquest. He related how, on the morning of 18 February, McGuire had paid him 6
d
to deliver a letter to Miss Sherriff at Palmerston Road.

When the inquest ended with a verdict of wilful murder, the jury made a point of stating that grave suspicions were attached to Frank McGuire. Having appeared before Bournemouth magistrates in a committal hearing that lasted four days, McGuire was sent for trial at the next Hampshire Assizes.

The trial opened at Winchester Castle on 28 May 1908 before Mr Justice A.C. Lawrence, with Mr F.R.Y. Radcliffe QC prosecuting and Mr J.A. Hawke defending. The 6ft tall McGuire looked every inch the ex-soldier as he stood in the dock while the charge against him was read, pleading ‘Not Guilty' in a clear, confident voice.

Radcliffe opened with the details of Emma's death, stating that she died between 7 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. on 18 February and that her death was either due to her being kicked or a person deliberately falling upon her, landing heavily on her left-hand side on his or her knees.

The counsel for the prosecution then went on to stress the seriousness of Frank McGuire's financial problems. As well as the pawn tickets found in his room, letters between McGuire and his fiancée, Alice Hayman, were produced in court in which money problems were discussed. It appeared that McGuire had also stolen some of Alice's jewellery, which was later recovered from a London pawnbroker. Radcliffe was unable to question Lily Hatch about Emma Sheriff's missing jewellery, since the conversation between them would have been hearsay and consequently inadmissible as evidence. However, he did elicit the information that jewellery had been found concealed in Emma's room in places where she would never normally have kept it.

He drew the conclusion that someone had been in possession of certain articles belonging to Emma and had replaced them in her room after her death. Her handbag, purse and most of her jewellery were not found on her body but instead were found in the most unlikely places in her room after her death. Radcliffe asked who could reasonably have replaced the items, drawing the conclusion that McGuire was the most likely suspect.

The prosecution then called a key witness, an Armerian lady, Mrs Phoebe Nutter-Scott. Mrs Nutter-Scott had been on a tramcar at around eight o'clock on the evening of the murder and had seen a man boarding the car at Broad Street in Southbourne. The man was breathing heavily and appeared pale, his hat pulled over his eyes as if he did not want to be recognised. He stood out because, like McGuire, he was very tall, and Mrs Nutter-Scott later picked McGuire in an identity parade.

Mr Hawke, for the defence, tried to insinuate that Mrs Nutter-Scott suffered from mental illness but she stood up to his cross-examination very well until its conclusion, when she slowly subsided to the floor in a faint. She was carried from the courtroom.

The main contention of the defence was that McGuire was in London at the time of the murder and so could not have killed Emma. Indeed, his landlady had seen him there and was thus able to substantiate his alibi, and there was also the matter of the London postmark on the letter he sent to his mother. Radcliffe suggested that, after paying the Boscombe boot boy to deliver his letter, McGuire had caught a train from Boscombe to Waterloo, arriving at Clapham at 1.22 p.m. and reaching Victoria shortly after 1.30 p.m. A London boot boy, Sidney Wingrove, gave evidence that he had cleaned McGuire's shoes at 2 p.m. that afternoon and that afterwards McGuire had given him two letters to post, with instructions not to post them until after 8 p.m.

Radcliffe then called the daughter of McGuire's London landlady, who had managed to lock herself out of the house and testified that McGuire had let her in when he arrived home at midnight on the night of the murder.

However, Radcliffe suggested that McGuire had actually left London at 4.10 p.m., arriving in Bournemouth in time to meet Emma Sherriff at 6.30 p.m. Having murdered her, he then caught the 8.50 p.m. train back to London which gave him plenty of time to get back to his lodgings by midnight.

Radcliffe produced two letters which had been found in McGuire's pockets when he was arrested; one was addressed to Emma, the other to his mother, and both were written on paper similar to that found in Emma's room. The envelopes were addressed but not posted, and in them Frank announced his safe return to London. What, asked Radcliffe, was the purpose of these letters? He suggested that Frank had intended to commit the murder on Monday 17 February and that these letters were written for the sole purpose of establishing an alibi for the relevant period but not posted when the murder had not taken place as planned.

Frank McGuire had a simple explanation. Called to the witness stand, he maintained that he had written them well before leaving Bournemouth in order to save time and had just forgotten to post them. He told the court that he had last met Emma on the evening of Monday 17 February and had returned to London the following morning, the day on which she met her death. He had met Wingrove, the boot boy, at 3 p.m. and given him sixpence for posting his letters the previous day, not on the day of the murder. He had wanted to conceal from his mother the fact that he was in Bournemouth on the Monday night; hence he had asked the boy to post the letters after 8 p.m. that evening.

He denied arriving at his lodgings at midnight on Tuesday 18 February, saying that his landlady's daughter had been mistaken. Finally, he reiterated that he had not met Emma Sherriff at the crossroads on Tuesday and had definitely not seen her at all that day.

‘So you did not murder her?' Mr Hawke asked him.

‘I did not', replied McGuire firmly.

The jury retired at 7.50 p.m. on the third day of the trial but, after a little more than an hour, sent a message to say that they were hopelessly deadlocked. They were asked to continue deliberating for a further two hours to see if the stalemate could be resolved.

At eleven o'clock they had still failed to reach a unanimous verdict and told the judge that they believed that there was not the slightest chance that they would be able to reach agreement. This left the judge with no choice but to dismiss them and to remand Frank McGuire in custody until the next Assizes, when he would face a retrial. However, the retrial never happened.

On 25 June, the Attorney General, Sir William Robson, entered a
Nolle Prosequi
after having received ‘new evidence' on the case. For reasons that have never been revealed, the charges against Frank McGuire were dropped and he was released from prison on 27 June 1908, a free man.

In an interview given to the
Bournemouth Echo
after his release, he thanked his legal representatives and praised his jailers for always treating him as the innocent man he was. He thanked the anonymous donor of a gift of £10, sent to him shortly after the trial, and announced his intention of accepting the offer of another anonymous benefactor, who had promised to set him up in a picture business in any English town he chose. He had chosen Tunbridge Wells, he told the reporter. He failed to mention that, as an innocent man, he would also now benefit from a £100 legacy left to him by Emma Sherriff in her will.

Surviving documents on the case contain no clues as to the nature of the ‘new evidence' that secured McGuire's freedom. However, it is believed that the original trial jury had voted 10–2 in favour of McGuire's acquittal, so it is possible that the Attorney General simply wished to avoid the expense of another trial that could easily have ended in the acquittal of the accused. No other person has ever been prosecuted in connection with the murder of Emma Sherriff and, officially, the case remains unsolved to this day.

W
illiam Walter Burton was a dapper young man who was seen as a cut above the normal Dorset farm worker. Married to an older woman, who ran the post office at Gussage St Michael and also taught at the village school, he was the very picture of respectability – a regular churchgoer who sang in the choir and was also a bell ringer.

Burton worked as a rabbit trapper and, at Manor Farm, Gussage St Michael, he met twenty-three-year-old cook, Winifred Mary Mitchell, who was actually a distant relation of his by marriage. Winnie, as she was known, was an attractive brunette with a sweet face and a petite but curvy figure. She was a lively, fun-loving young woman who soon found herself strongly attracted to the rugged and virile Burton with his athletic body, sandy hair and neat moustache.

The couple met regularly at their work and quickly became friends, then lovers, although Winnie apparently baulked at taking the final steps to physical intimacy. Letters were exchanged between them and, reading between the lines, it seems certain that Burton used a degree of emotional blackmail to finally coerce her into submission. In one letter he wrote that he knew that she would be cross and upset because she had said that she would never forgive such a nasty thing as had happened the previous day. The nature of the ‘nasty thing' seems apparent, as the letter continued to say that her love for him was not very strong. He had proved that he loved her and they had been together long enough to know each other. In other words, ‘if you loved me, you would sleep with me', and Winnie obviously eventually capitulated to Burton's demands, because, in 1913, she told him that she was pregnant.

To Winnie, Burton said exactly the words she wanted to hear. They would be married, he promised. Perhaps they would elope to London, or even Canada. However, behind Winnie's back, Burton's true feelings were revealed to his friend, Arthur Bush. To Arthur, Burton confided that he wished he could find some young man to court Winnie and take the blame for her pregnancy. Winnie's mother, Rose Mitchell, was told only part of the story. Winnie was going away and she would contact her mother as soon as she arrived at her hitherto unknown destination.

Between them, the two lovers hatched a plan. Winnie was to pack her clothes – and some of Burton's – in her travelling bag. A car was to collect her from a crossroads near the farm and drive her to Wimborne station, where she would catch the mail train to London. Burton would make his own way to London to avoid arousing suspicion and the couple would then meet up with friends who lived in the capital.

Burton confided this plan to another friend, carter Fred Butt. Butt was horrified and urged Burton to reconsider, telling him that if he went the police would surely be after him. Burton told him that he planned to shave off his moustache as a disguise and that, if he went, he did not plan on returning to Gussage St Michael ever again. ‘I'm not so sure about that', replied Butt, sagely.

However, Butt's warning seemed to have struck a chord with Burton and, the next time he saw Winnie, he told her that he had changed his mind and would not be going away with her. Winnie was understandably furious with him for going back on his promise. She threatened to reveal her pregnancy to Burton's wife, not to mention details of Burton's previous affairs with other women.